Crowdsourced Bicycling

Bicyclists and bike planners are pioneers in using crowdsourcing to help improve biking in their communities. For example, they were among the first to use GPS tracking apps to embrace the use of GPS tracking to help obtain data on where and when people travel by bike. This tracking data can be used to better understand actual behaviour of bicyclists (which routes they choose) and can highlight where improvements are needed. This page presents examples of how crowdsourcing is being used in bicycling.

Crowdsourced Cycling: Map-based Reporting

Ride Report

Ride Report is an application that tracks bike trips and then allows users to describe the quality of their trips. The data is provided to cities anonymously for use in helping plan bike facilities and transport planning. The map at the bottom on the right shows “stress levels” for streets in downtown Portland. More from Streetsblog California: Crowdsource Bicycling App ‘Ride Report’ Goes National Today (2016).

CycleTracks

The San Francisco County Transportation Authority developed the CycleTracks application in 2010 to better understand the needs of bicyclists. The application monitors cyclist paths to collect data about actual route choice. CycleTracks has also been used in several other cities to collect similar information. (The link includes information on how to use the application.)

More Examples: Cycling Map-based Reporting

CyclePhilly is a smartphone app for recording your bicycle trips. Data from the app can be used by regional transportation planners in the Philadelphia area to make Philly a better place to ride. Cycle Philly was developed by Code for Philly, an open group of citizens working to harness the power of technology to modernize citizenship in Philadelphia.

The WeCycle application by TravelAI is an application that tracks you as you bicycle and collects all the information so that it can be used by planners to help improve bicycle facilities. Here’s an article from Fastcoexist on WeCycle: A new app tracks where cyclists actually ride to help plan better paths.

Meine Radspur (German) is an application developed in Vienna uses GPS to record bike trips, users can identify hazards and ideas either in real time or in reviewing their trip later (German). MeineRadspur means “my bicycle path” in English.

radwende.de is an app that combines bicycle GPS tracking with art. Read more at radwende or at their website radwende.de

Pinging Bicycle Data

These applications allow you to send data directly to a map that keeps track of where bicyclists experience problems. Many work directly from your bell – in other words, you ring your bell and a message is sent that there is a problem in this location. They use GPS tracking and bluetooth.

Ping – if you care

PING if you care! lets cyclists communicate directly with the city of Brussels to make cycling more comfortable and safer. Users track their rides and push the PING button whenever they find a flaw in cycling infrastructure, unclear signage, conflicts with other road users or even the fear of dooring. The application was developed by Bike Citizens of Graz, Austria.

Blubel

The Blubel bike bell provides navigation information via LEDs on the top of the bell and learns from the cycling community to find the safest routes by gathering data from every time the Blubel is rung, These location points and other journey data are gathered and analysed to calculate safest routes.

Connected Cycle Pedal

The Connected Cycle pedal is a connected pedal that automatically records the speed, route, incline, and calories burnt of every bike trip. These statistics are sent to the cloud, and made available to users through the Connected Cycle application available on smartphones.

Crowdsourced Bicycling: Collaboration

Collaboration consists of working together to develop a plan or take action. We describe three types of crowdsourced collaboration: engagement, education and process. Here are examples of applications used for crowdsourced collaboration in bicycling.

Ringstrasse 150 is one of our projects. It’s a collaboration application designed to generate ideas and increase support for better bike facilities on Vienna’s Ringstrasse. It consists of the RingRide mobile phone game designed to engage and educate people, and the Ringstrasse150.com website for getting involved in improving the Ringstrasse’s bicycle and pedestrian facilities. More about Ringstrasse150 from Our Projects.

MetroQuest is public participation software that provides a wide variety of components including engagement, education and process elements that can be mixed and matched for specific projects. In this case MetroQuest was used to help develop Ottawa’s pedestrian and bicycle plans. The application was provided online in both French and English to gather people’s comments on pedestrian & cycling behavior, origins, destinations and routing, levels of comfort, and recommended improvements.

Crowdfunded DYI Improvements

Jonathan is an architect and bike rider working to increase safety of pedestrians and cyclists. He has a crowdfunding project called Flowers & Such: Boston Bike Lanes on GoFundMe. So far he’s raised about $7,000 for flowers and cones to create interventions on the Mass Ave corridor, the most dangerous stretch of road in Boston.

Where do cyclists ride? A route choice model developed with revealed preference GPS data (paywall) – article by Joseph Broacha, Jennifer Dill and John Gliebeb in Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice (December 2012).

Blog Posts: Crowdsourced Bicycling

We’re excited to be launching the Ringstrasse150 – Ring Ride project. The project consists of a website with information on improving walking and cycling in Vienna and a mobile phone game designed to increase engagement by linking to the website in the game results screen. The website is available here: Ringstrasse150 We’ll be working on […]

Arlington Virginia’s Mobility Lab recently organised a “Radius Ride” from a high school to determine how far people could ride their bikes in 5, 10 and 15 minutes. This is designed to help people understand that things are closer by bike than they might think. Here’s the Mobility Lab’s post School Bicycling Safety in Alexandria, Virginia […]

Please vote for our Grr-Grr-Bike game on the Velo City 2013 Cycling Visionary Awards! http://velo-city2013.com/?page_id=2337&project_id=68 It’s quite easy to vote and your vote will help us publicize the project. Thanks!

Grr-Grr-Bike! is a fun way to learn about urban bike riding and support better biking in your community. Grr-Grr-Bike is a smartphone game where you guide a bike rider through the city, avoiding on-coming vehicles, car doors and other obstacles. You need to stop at red lights and for pedestrians crossing the street. You’re also […]